Campus strives to expand energy sustainability

University officials are looking to steer the campus toward a
more environmentally friendly community by bringing more solar
panels to Livingston campus and charging docks for electric
cars.

The University plans to install the additional solar panels — which
will be 32 acres long and will produce eight megawatts of
electricity — by January 2013. The system in place now covers seven
acres and produces 1.4 megawatts of electricity, said Joseph
Witkowski, director of Utilities Operations.

The solar farm has two functions: It not only produces electricity
but also creates heated water as a byproduct, said Michael
Kornitas, Energy Conservation manager.

The current solar farm on Livingston campus produces 11 percent of
the electricity needed, which is enough electricity for 145 average
homes, Kornitas said.

At $40 million, the new solar-powered system will be more expensive
than the system already in place, which cost $10 million, Witkowski
said. The majority of the funding will come from the Solar
Renewable Energy Credit program, a state subsidy program.

But Witkowski said the investment is worth it, as Livingston campus
would never look the same.

“We will be providing around 50 percent of Livingston’s power …
saving over a million dollars a year,” he said.

In addition to the solar canopy project, the University is also
putting in a geothermal system for the Rutgers Business School
building on Livingston campus, Witkowski said.

The construction for this will finish in the next couple of weeks,
and the geothermal project will be complete in the fall of 2012, he
said.

“We drill a whole lot of holes in the ground, and we dig down
approximately 500 feet per hole,” Witkowski said. “For heating and
cooling the building, we utilize the Earth’s core temperature to
offset the energy costs that it would normally take to heat or cool
a building.”

When most power plants make electricity from a turbine, they lose
all the excessive heat, yielding 40 percent efficiency, he said.
But if the plant is able to utilize the heat, then it brings the
efficiency up to almost 80 percent.

Monica Mazurek, director of the Environment and Energy Program,
said investing in the capital system and hardware is low
maintenance that lasts for a few decades, saving money and reducing
carbon dioxide emissions.

The University is also working to recharge systems for electric
cars powered by the cogeneration plant and the solar panels,
Mazurek said.

There are two ChargePoint America recharging systems for electric
cars at the Rutgers Center for Advanced Infrastructure and
Transportation on Busch campus, powered by the cogeneration plant
and the solar panels, Mazurek said. The reason for this small
number is that electric cars are more expensive than cars that run
on petroleum.

Dunbar Birnie, professor of materials science and engineering, said
the problem of plug-in technology becomes a matter of where to
invest the money.

“Do we put money into a lot of infrastructure and charging when
there are no cars to plug in?” Birnie asked. “Or do we put a lot of
money into new kinds of cars and not have places to plug them
in?”

He wants faculty members to push the envelope even further in order
to expand other projects.

“I’m trying to get a funded project going that … could give insight
into how could we help people transition from regular cars to plug
in vehicles that would use solar power,” Birnie said.